Rachel Goodrich trades in bright acoustics for dirty distortion with her new solo project, Jag.

If you’re familiar with Miami-born, L.A.-based musician Rachel Goodrich‘s first two albums, Tinker Toys (2008) and Rachel Goodrich (2011), you might describe her sound as vaudevillian blues with equal parts cuteness, quirk, sass, stonerism, and sentimental sincerity, a mixture she calls “Shake-a-billy”, played with a ukulele and a kazoo to the thump of a bass drum. You might note influences ranging from Karen Dalton all the way to Tiny Tim (whose “Tip Toe Through The Tulips” Goodrich covers).

The term “garage rock” certainly wouldn’t come to mind.

Until, that is, you listen to the first four tracks Goodrich put out under the name Jag. Goodrich is calling the quartet “the dirty demos” and in fact the songs, with their distorted vocals, raunchy instrumentation (noodling lead guitar, fuzzy bass, cymbally drums), and rough recordings, could use a shower. But a sporadic roll in the dirt does a body good, and whether these songs represent a permanent departure in style for Goodrich, whom the New York Times once called “the queen of the Miami indie rock scene”, or a mere fitful phase in the evolution of her musical persona doesn’t much matter. As Goodrich sings on “Say Nothing”: “It’s not that bad, babe, it’s not that bad.” Actually, as you can hear for yourself below, it’s pretty damn good.